This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Vespid is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
| Vespidae | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
| Subfamilies | ||||||||||||||
|
Eumeninae: potter wasps |
The Vespidae are a large (nearly 5,000 species), diverse, cosmopolitan family of wasps, including nearly all the known eusocial wasps and many solitary wasps. Each social wasp colony includes a queen and a number of female workers with varying degrees of sterility relative to the queen. In temperate social species, colonies usually only last one year, dying at the onset of winter. New queens and males (drones) are produced towards the end of the summer, and after mating, the queens hibernate over winter in cracks or other sheltered locations. The nests of most species are constructed out of mud, but polistines and vespines use plant fibers, chewed to form a sort of paper (also true of some stenogastrines).
The subfamilies Polistinae and Vespinae are composed solely of eusocial species, while Eumeninae, Euparagiinae, and Masarinae are all solitary; Stenogastrinae contains a variety of forms from solitary to social.
In Polistinae and Vespinae, rather than consuming prey directly, prey are masticated and fed to the larvae, and the larvae, in return, produce a clear liquid (with high amino acid content) which the adults consume; the exact amino acid composition varies considerably among species, but it is considered to contribute substantially to adult nutrition1.
 European wasp |
 A hornet nest |
 A different angle |
 Polistes nest |
 Another angle |
 Another angle |
 Vespa tropica from India |
 Dolichovespula media (a European tree wasp) stripping wood from a fence for use in nest construction |
External links
- Evolutionary history of social behavior in Vespids
- Vespidae of the world - Iconographic work
- Stunning photographs of Vespidae (and other insects) in flight
References
- ^ Hunt, J. H., I. Baker, and H. G. Baker. 1982. Similarity of amino acids in nectar and larval saliva: the nutritional basis for trophallaxis in social wasps. Evolution 36: 1318-1322
 |
This Hymenoptera-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 29 October 2008, at 21:07.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Vespid".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.